“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!” - Jack Kerouac

Monday, May 10, 2010

New Orleans, City of Dreams

The title of this blog might rhyme, depending on your pronunciation of New Orleans. We Midwesterners typically pronounce "New Or-leens" (although I've adopted the less nasal "New Or'lins" pronunciation"). I've heard Southerners pronounce "New O-lee-ans" or "New'awlins" and les Français l'appel: "La Nouvelle Orléans". However you say it, NOLA really is a fantastical dream city to be in.

Speaking of dreams, New Orleans seems to have more than her fair share of nightmares. From violent weather (Hurricane Katrina ring a bell?) to the recent oil rig explosion and subsequent oil spill surging out hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil PER DAY threatening the livelihood of fishermen and nationally protected wetlands and wildlife along the gulf. Right now, no end is in sight. It's an environmental catastrophe and devastating situation for all the people who live and work nearby. The outcome is going to hit the seafood economy hard and will affect millions in terms of seafood production. Not to mention the water quality in the gulf and beyond. With prospective solutions dubbed "top hat" and "junk shot", they just don't sound very reassuring. In fact, the "junk shot" is literally shooting garbage into the holes in hopes the clog up the broken pipes. On top of that, there are jets dropping chemicals over the spill to disperse the oil. Call me crazy, but that just sounds like adding to the pollution to me. Let's hope the corporations and political parties responsible for this disaster fix the problem and as a nation we rethink our dependency on oil and how drill for it. Drill, baby, drill? More like spill, baby, spill.

Another month+ has gone by since our last post. I believe Chris is finished posting for now. He will jump back on the bandwagon once we hit the road again someday. We recently had a pool party and barbecue with our Lanata House neighbors and someone sparked the idea of taking an Amtrak tour across Canada. I adore the idea since the train is my favorite form of transportation (second to kerouaking in the Dod, of course!) There's also the entire East coast of the US left to travel, and there's always backpacking in Europe... We shall see.

I am proud to announce I've been accepted to Tulane University's School of Continuing Education. As you may know, Chris and I share a lifelong dream to open a bookstore. Achieving a degree in small business development will be a step in the right direction to learn how to write a business proposal, plan financially, manage a business, etc. Our likelihood of being approved for a bank loan to open up a store will increase largely with this degree. Taking courses in accounting and commercial law are going to be worlds different from the feminist theory and English literature classes I am used to. I can honestly say I'm geeked to go back to school and challenge my intellect beyond crossword puzzles and KenKen.

Chris is still working at the Marigny Brasserie and I'm still at the Lamothe House Hotel. Chris has been banking at the restaurant because he's an excellent server and NOLA has been busy-busy with all the festivals and conventions lately. Tourism will slow down between June and September when it's really hot, save for a few festival weekends though.

I have plenty of pictures to post so keep an eye out for that within the next week.

Chris and I are really looking forward to Josh and Kaylan's wedding on May 22! We'll see many of your Graylinganders, er, Graylinginians? there!